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The countless non-playable characters the player cannot interact with are placeholders for the Outerworld NPCs. These Outerworld NPCs' names are written in blue compared to the in-game NPCs' white written names that Lightning can interact with. They appear in random places across Nova Chrysalia. After talking to the NPC, the player could to cheer them by pressing /, report post with /, view their profile with /, or message them with /.

To enable the social networks services, the player needed to "enable network connection" for the option "Outerworld Services" in the game's Settings. Next step was accepting Terms of Use. After linking with Facebook and/or Twitter an authentication code in square brackets ("[", "]") appeared and was to be activated at this site. After the player entered the code, he was be asked to authorize the app. After authorizing it, the player was free to use the Outerworld Services.

The player couldn't summon an Outerworld NPC if they were only linked to Twitter. Facebook was needed.

The player should have linked their PSN account to their Facebook account.

One could join the Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII for Timeline application on Facebook; [1].

The player could submit a Lightning message or take an Outerworld snapshot in-game, so they were added to the Outerworld application.

The player could look around on the application for someone with the item they wanted. This could have taken a while.

The player could press the "summon" button and take note of the name of who's selling the desired item, their message, etc.

The player could enter the pause menu; save, then choose "Exit game". When the player reloaded their file, checked around for an Outerworld NPC with the same name as the person they just saw., they could buy the item they wanted from them.

After the player pressed the / button, they needed to press the / button to submit a snapshot.

When in the snapshot menu, the player could compose a message, select an item to be attached on the snapshot, select one of five category (People, Humor, Happenings, Battle, and Favorite Snapshots), and finally take the snapshot. Also on this screen, the player could submit the snapshot by pressing / button, view their profile with /, or message them with /.

The "Take snapshot" option, the player was given several options: Move camera with /, Zoom out with /, Zoom in with /, Show/hide Lightning with /, Take snapshot with /, Cancel with /, Rotate camera with /, and Reset camera by pressing down the /.

All created snapshots are low-quality JPGs below 50 KB in size and 640×360 pixels in resolution.

On February 14th, 2014, Square Enix initiated a series of four "Outerworld Challenges": for every specific number of sent Outerworld snapshots within two weeks after Challenge's initiation a "new" garb was unlocked and a new Challenge appeared. When a Challenge's requirement were met, the garb was available at the Rewards Barter Shop provided that the player talked with an Outerworld Services non-playable character from Square Enix called "@LRFF13". All unlocked garbs came from the game's Hard Mode, and after being unlocked were available through the Outerworld Services until May 7th, 2014.[3]

On the announcement day of Outerworld Challenges, Square Enix announced Challenge which said that posting 100,000 or more snapshots would unlock the Helter Skelter garb. By February 21st players were able to fulfill the requirement and the garb appeared within Square Enix's Outerworld characters. On the same day, it was announced that if Lightning Returns community reached 250,000 posts by March 7th, another Hard Mode garb, Duelist, would be made available through the services.[4] On March 7th, Square Enix announced that the players completed the second Challenge, and announced the third on the same day without specifying the time limit, but mentioning a total of 300,000 posts should be made by the community to achieve the La Fouldre garb.[3]

On March 17th, 2014, Square Enix announced that four new adornments would be available exclusively through the Outerworld Services. To obtain an adornment, the player needed to talk with an Outerworld NPC called "@LRFF13" with "correct" message subjects: